Masu

A box arrived for us this week, filled with an order we'd made.

Do you remember this picture I showed a week or so ago?  This was a little cardboard box that Tetsu had made to try and figure out if we could bring Japanese masu to Leiya and Tony's wedding.  Well, we decided we could and this week the masu arrived!

This is a masu.  It is a little wooden box used for drinking sake at celebrations.  The wood is Japanese cypress and has a wonderful aroma.  The boxes are made in the traditional Japanese way, without nails.  The wood sides are precisely cut with grooves and then fitted into each other.

When I got the idea of masu for the wedding reception I thought about how it probably would be a common article at a Japanese wedding reception and rather unusual at an American wedding.  A square cup...  the interesting way the wood is put together...  the woodsy aroma...  and the Japanese/Chinese wood-burned character Kotobuki, which means "celebration".  In Japan a large keg-like sake container would be opened at the reception and sake would be dipped and served to guests in masu. We aren't going to go that far and I doubt we are even going to have sake at this reception, but the masu can still be used to toast the new couple with whatever people are drinking.  I'm thinking that maybe I can throw in a couple candies in each masu and top each one with an origami crane (which I am still making!) as table decorations.  The guests can take home their masu (a little drawstring plastic bag is provided) and use it to hold paperclips or coins or whatever small things are loose on a counter...  Interesting as well as functional?  Well, that's as close as I'm going to get!

We now have 70 masu for wedding guests.  We may take the large packing box as is or maybe repack the masu into our suitcases.  They are not too heavy actually and not even too bulky.  I will go looking for Japanese candies this week.

And what is the date again?

No, I'm not posting photos from back winter files...  I took these pictures today!!!!

This week is the week for entrance ceremonies in Nikko.  Yesterday was a beautiful day and the local jr. high school was able to have a very nice ceremony with picture taking outside under the cherry blossom trees that are in full bloom.  Schools feel very fortunate when the cherry blossoms cooperate and bloom just when the entrance ceremonies are held.

Today was the elementary school's entrance ceremony for the new first graders.  The cherry blossoms were still cooperating but the weather was NOT!!!  It was cold when we took John for a walk at 6:00 am.  It was drizzling when I went out for crosswalk duty at 7:30.  AND IT WAS SNOWING WHEN I GOT TO THE SCHOOL FOR ENTRANCE CEREMONIES AT 10:00!!!  It is April 10 in Japan already!  Why the snow?

Can you make out the snow flakes against the darker tree?  It was coming down hard!  The cherry blossoms are doing their part but the snow obscured their pale loveliness.

By the time the entrance ceremony was finished, the fields and roofs were white.

The tree in our yard was looking bedraggled with the weight of the snow.  We didn't even get this much snow during the winter season this past year!

Tetsu and I went to the pool in the afternoon and the next city over (through the tunnel, on the other side of the local hills) had only rain.  After our swim we came out of the tunnel to THIS winter wonderland!  Remember... April 10th!
The tulips were surprised by their cold white blanket too!

Kitten's Tale flimsy finish!

A quick report on a newly finished flimsy...

I have put together all the blocks from the Kitten's Tale quilt kit that I started back in...  Gosh, I can't figure out when I started this...  It must have been at a slow time, maybe last winter?  The blocks took a lot of hand work, both applique and embroidery and so I must have needed something to do downstairs where it was warm.  At any rate I've plugged away at these blocks without any real plan for them...

Actually I have made the Kitten's Tale quilt before with my patchwork friends.  A blog friend had sent me all the patterns from a BOM that she had subscribed to, and all the fabrics.  My friends and I each took a block to work on and once they were made we worked together sewing the pinwheels and rail fences.  That quilt was hand quilted (by all of us) and finally raffled off at the kindergarten bazaar so it must have been quite a few years ago because we stopped making a yearly quilt for the kindergarten at least 5 years ago!

There was so much fabric left over from the original quilt kit that I finally decided I could make my own quilt in my own sweet time, thus I have slowly been working on it.  Last summer I took 4 blocks to California with me to work while I stayed close to my mother's bedside and I recall that she enjoyed watching the blocks develop.  Well, finally this is ready for quilting!

While at Mrs. Furui's last week, we both ordered some inexpensive backing fabric and I am now awaiting that order to come through.  Unfortunately the patchwork group won't be meeting again until June and there is another quilt that is lined up to be basted.  I guess my Kitten's Tale will be up on the design wall for quite awhile for me to enjoy.  After it's quilted (hand?  machine?), I'm not sure if this is staying in my house or if I am going to give it away...

Day trip to Gunma Prefecture

Tetsu and I went off on another day trip.  Successful in some ways... in some ways not...  This time we took a bus/train trip!

Actually, the tour plan seemed a bit odd to us but anyway, we drove to a meeting place and a tourist bus complete with tour guide picked us up.  The bus was FULL of people and we all rode for about 20 minutes through the mountains to a little old remote train station.  The cute bus guide did little more than pass out train passes and we said good-bye to her until the return bus trip back to Nikko.

The country train station.  Nothing in front of it meaning no main street or shops or anything.  It was rather rusted and there were no station people there collecting fares etc.

Here comes our train!  Actually it was a little two car trolley that was open air.

Nothing like the cold brisk air! 

Hang on to your hat! 

The trolley went through the mountains and INTO the mountains through tunnels that took quite a few minutes to rattle noisily through.  The lit panels overhead kept changing colors as we hurtled through the darkness.

And finally we arrived at the next station on our stop.  There was a small festival being held there in honor of the peach blossoms surrounding the station.

While on the trolley my eyes met with a fellow passenger and we realized that we somehow knew each other and got to talking.  Her daughter and Takumi were classmates in elementary school and this lady was taking her four year old grandson out for the day trip.  The little boy and I got on quite well and once we were at the station he and I went looking for a picnic bench while his grandmother and Tetsu bought noodles for lunch.  Cute little boy but I forgot to ask if I could post his photo so I've blurred him out for the blog.

This station along the line was a small one also but because of the festival there were crowds of people there.

We said good-bye to the little boy and his grandmother and Tetsu and I took off walking along the railroad tracks taking pictures of the countryside and the peach blossoms.

 Walking through tunnels...

 Crossing bridges.

We found an odd statue carved out of stone.

And a wonderland of cherry blossom trees.

Compared to the peach blossoms, cherry blossoms look white!

 The Japanese countryside.

 And of course peach trees with their deep pink color!

The photographers were out in swarms standing on ladders and staking out the best places to take photos of the open air trains clattering through the pink trees.

Back at the train station we ran into our little friend and his grandmother again and they took an earlier train home so we waved our good-byes.  Tetsu and I decided to stay another hour and take more pictures.

 The shadows were getting long...

And finally our return train took us back through mountains and tunnels to where our bus was waiting for us.  It was a beautiful way to spend the day!

So why was this unsuccessful in some ways?  Because we had a day pass on this train line and there were at least another 15 stations we could have traveled to and visited.  We got off at the first station and spent the whole day there!  What was the point of buying a day pass?

We found a lot of beauty and enjoyed our cameras and THAT was successful!

The Nozomi Project

We have warmish weather (well, cool) one day and then freezing weather another day.  It is hard to figure out what to wear everyday!

This was what our morning scenery looked like on Tuesday!  We woke up to snow and marveled at the white fields but half an hour later when we came home from our walk the sun was out and the snow was turning to mist!

I ordered some earrings from the Nozomi Project website...  It is a companion website to the Megumi Project (the group that turns used kimonos into scarves and shawls and bags).  The Nozomi Project is also a group in Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture that makes jewelry out of broken pottery, some found at the tsunami site on the coast of Japan. 

Nozomi, which means "hope" in Japanese, is a faith-based social enterprise bringing sustainable income, community, dignity and hope to the women of Ishinomaki, Japan by training them to craft high quality jewelry products.  Nozomi women are creating one-of-a-kind pieces of jewelry featuring broken pieces of pottery left in the wake of the tsunami and other up-cycled pottery..."

Besides being beautiful, I love the idea of making something beautiful out of brokenness and I ordered these three pairs of earrings, one for Leiya, one for a friend and one for myself.  I'm loving these so much that I may go back and spend more money at the website!  The two pairs on the right and left are nearly symmetrical, but the pair in the center is obviously made from broken pottery.  A gold rimmed teacup?  I'm having a hard time deciding which pair to keep and which pair to give away!  I asked Leiya which she liked and she texted back,

"Wow, that's prettyyyy!"  
"The one on the right!"  
"Or the one in the middle..." 
"Or the one on the left side... lol"
"I like them all!"
"The one on the right is my fav..!"
"I think..."
"They are all very beautiful!!"

That was no help at all...  But my thinking goes along the same lines...  Which one to keep?

Cherry blossoms

On Monday, Tetsu and I went out hoping to find cherry blossoms.  We were a bit too early for blossoms in our area...  I guess so!  It snowed on Tuesday!!!

Did you know that much like a weather map, Japan broadcasts a cherry blossom forecast map at this time of year.  Day by day we get updates on where the first blossoms have bloomed and when to expect full blooming in a wave across the country.  There is an "official" cherry blossom tree and someone in the Japan Meteorological Corporation actually goes out and COUNTS the number of blossoms blooming!  When the official spots 5 blossoms in bloom "Cherry Blossom Season" is officially declared! 

I guess we didn't look at the Cherry Blossom map closely because blossoms were scarce but with a bit of scouting we found a park with a few trees in bloom.

Tetsu felt that the lack of people detracted from the cherry blossom viewing but he and I are of different opinions on this topic.  Japanese love cherry blossoms so much that as soon as full bloom has been announced there will be drinking parties held under the trees and companies will send out their newest employees to stake out a good place and protect their location by sitting around for hours until a company drinking party can be assembled.  There is often hardly room to walk in the parks and as the alcohol flows, people become boisterous and garbage bins overflow.  There is no end to food and drink being sold in the stalls along the park walkways and everyone becomes a little crazy.  And this goes on all night long!  Nighttime is considered a great time to view cherry blossoms/have a party, because in the parks the trees are backlit.

Even on this cold day at the park we found, there was a scattering of food stalls and a few people watching a local karaoke concert in the bandstand.  Too sedate for Tetsu.

Looks cold and lonely doesn't it?

There are different types of cherry blossom trees though I'm not sure of the names...  This bushy very pale pink type...

And a deeper pink with hanging blossoms.

 There were a few other flowers blooming in the park but not many...

 I'm still in my down jacket!

Hopefully the cherry blossom front will continue advancing and we will have another chance to go picture taking.